OWED TO PURCELL maquette - page i

Sculpture proposal - to mark the tercentenary of the death of the English composer HENRY PURCELL(1695 - 1995).

MAQUETTE - PURCELL: 64cm x 83cm x 56cm H

MAQUETTE - CHRISTCHURCH GARDENS: 59cm x 63cm x 58cm H

Amongst his many roles, PURCELL was Organ Master at Westminster Abbey, which was the plumb musical position of the time. The sculpture was to be sited in a small park close to the Abbey, integrated into an avenue of London Plane trees - reminiscent of the columns of the great church. Plane trees were introduced to London at the time Purcell was at the pinnacle of his career - and many live on today. This 'pocket park' in the heart of busy London, has an overpoweringly reverential and peaceful atmosphere.

Besides his contemporary fame, PURCELL was astonishingly prolific and innovative as a composer. In his short life he was 'instrumental' in promoting the English Orchestra, and this - as much as his music - has earned him a place in our history.

OWED TO PURCELL shows the figure of PURCELL seated at a metaphoric keyboard (formed from a tree trunk) - scribbling the next overture. His colleagues of the newly formed orchestra have put their instruments down and gone off to the pub. The instruments, cast from reconstructions of those used at the time, have been left carelessly on the ground - but in the position each player would have taken up to play in this new exotic 'orchestral' style.

Over the ensueing three hundred years, PURCELL has grown into his instrument - almost taken root - whilst the abandoned instruments on the ground appear to have had three centuries of feet treading them into the earth so that only the top face of them can still be seen.

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